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Page: Profile: Wren's Nest News Local
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Article: 21307
[Society]
Date Posted:
10/27/2009
5:17:38 pm EDT
Wvox Stats
Views: 2,294
RSS: 20,278
Comments: 4
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Halloween Gets A Bad Rap
Author: Sue Metzger Source: TheMorning Sun (MI)
Title: HALLOWEEN GETS A BAD RAP
For more than a decade, it has disturbed me to see what were once only innocent, child-oriented, non-threatening, classroom-based Halloween parties ruled as religious celebrations and thus unfit for and removed from public schools. This is yet another example of out-of-control demands for separation of church and state that includes excising Christmas and is working its way to other long-standing holidays.
While not all U.S. schools have yet been affected, many school boards and administrations have been challenged to dump Halloween. They have capitulated to small groups of people who claim it is fraught with religious symbolism. If their rants do not immediately scare Halloween costumes and pumpkin cupcakes out of classrooms, then a few others pound another nail in the Halloween coffin by claiming that the holiday is only a thinly veiled promotion of Satanism.
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Community Thoughts: There are 4 comments posted | Reverse Sort |
| While I Agree... | Oct 29th. at 10:38:38 am EDT
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Saskia (Lowell, Massachusetts) - Email Me
with the separation of church & state, I think what's at issue here is more the separation of Hallmark from Holy Days.
I know I am most likely in the minority here, but I hold steadfast to the idea that Halloween is not Samhain and that the big guy in the red suit that hands out gifts in December has nothing to do with either Yule or Christmas.
Give the children their small magic now and maybe, just maybe, you give them permission to make Great Magick later. I know it worked like that for me.
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| Yes, However.... | Oct 28th. at 1:46:03 pm EDT
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Batman (Madison, Wisconsin) - Email Me
....you cannot politically sanitize every holiday. Case in point: Easter or as we call it, Eostera, isn't a national holiday, but yet it is still celebrated, and celebrated if not recognized even within the public schools. This, even as a Pagan through & through, isn't a bad thing. As one writer put - it's up to the parents to explain holidays to their kids and celebrate it with them, or not. Look at it this way - compared to some countries, the number of national holidays we have are few and far between and only a handful of the ones we have as national holidays could even be considered remotely religious, and of those (being xmas & easter) they've been so neutralized that they're secular now. Case in point - easter is being written off by a good many who aren't xtian as nothig more than a spring celebration. OK, so if THAT'S not Pagan, what IS? And xmas? Please. How many different religions celebrate their big holiday besides us & xtianity? You get my point. So while some celebrate xmas, we celebrate Yule, while some celebrate Hannukah, etc. While some celebrate Easter, we celebrate Eostera, which last I checked, is where Rome GOT the idea anyway. Let the blowhard fundies become ever more shrill. The better for us to tune them out and thus they become a part of the background noise that makes up our society besides - no better, no worse, just a piece of the puzzle that makes this patchwork known as American society. They can squeak all they like, but in this day & age, anymore it's the squeaky wheel that just simply gets replaced.
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| Taking The Fun Out Of Life.. | Oct 28th. at 9:34:45 am EDT
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bigcat (peoria, Illinois) - Email Me
While I agree, albeit reluctantly, to the separation of church and state, largely because too much brou-ha-ha has been made about the various celebrations in schools as "evil" or "satanic"-or whatever, the real losers will as always be the kids, especially the little ones.
Much of what was once fun and innocent will be lost to the wayside as a result and -while school is supposed to be a place of learning, it will no longer hold the fun and excitement of the parties that were held near the end of the day- and the fact that -once in awhile, dour learning could be put aside for a few moments of fun. The excitement of showing off a new costume to the class, or having an afternoon party for christmas where small presents are passed amongst the classmates will be forever lost and the classroom will no longer be a place where one might want to be,and The After school Halloween parties will soon be gone where school kids could win small prizes for the best costumes- but that is the price that must be paid to satisfy everyone-or not. The reasons for the arguments pro and con are more subtle than that.
Learning is very important to be sure, but much that is lost, much like music and art, are those pleasurable moments that made school more human and kept kids in time with the seasons, making schools places where one wanted to be-not merely where one has to be.
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| Yes, Keep It Out Of School. | Oct 27th. at 11:26:53 pm EDT
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Roy Linford Adams (Buxton, Maine) - Email Me
I'm a Witch, and I agree to take it out of schools.
Why?
Because I support seperation of church and state. Just as the christians don't want schools teaching the kids about our falsly-called "satanic" holiday, I don't want my kids being forced to learn the perversion of Yule called christmas.
Keeping it out of schools isn't going to stop kids from going trick-or-treating that night, nor is it going to stop my family's Samhain Sabbat gathering and ritual, just like removing christmas from schools hasn't stopped kids from getting presents under their Wishing Trees on the 25th. It's the parent's job to pass on their traditions, not the school's.
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